Recognizing Defeat
by Auriga Amortentia
Summary: As Voldemort's reign over the Wizarding World begins, certain forces come together that will provide the means for his defeat. A story with as much romance as action, and meant to fill in the lack of description in the books of James' and Lily's lives.


**Recognizing Defeat**

**Disclaimer:** Everything used in this story is completely and totally the property of J.K.R. I just fill in the gaps as I see fit ;)

**Author's** **Note:** For now this is all I have planned for the story. It could definitely go places, but first I have to figure out if it _should_ go places. Feel free to leave your input!

The smell of steam made Lily smile ecstatically as she entered Platform 9 ¾. She was returning to school for her sixth year and even though there were numerous things about the wizarding world with which she wasn't completely familiar, there were also an abundance of things that were habit to her; one of them was boarding the school train on September first every year. And this year would be even better because there was no self-doubt about whether she would make an effective prefect.

With this thought, she glanced around her, trying to locate Remus Lupin, her fellow sixth-year Gryffindor prefect. As opposed to everyone else around her, she had already said good-bye to her parents in the Muggle portion of King's Cross. Her parents, while thrilled that she was a witch, still felt uncomfortable when confronted with magical things. She had come to terms with this long before now and just shrugged off the momentary desire to be like those families around her. She was different, and she liked that.

At that moment she saw Remus lifting his trunk onto the train. She approached him, waiting for him to finish loading it before greeting him.

"So how was your summer, Remus?"

He looked around at her, seemingly surprised that someone had approached him without his knowing. When he saw that it was her, he grinned.

"It was great," he replied. "I spent most of it lounging around, being bored while my parents were at work. I did get quite too much reading done." He sighed dramatically. "How was yours?"

"Fairly good." She lifted one end of her suitcase onto the train and struggled with the other side for a moment before asking, "Could you…?"

"Yeah, sure." Remus assisted her so that finally both of their trunks were successfully on the train. "So you were saying?"

"Oh yeah. Well it was good, but in the same way that it always is. I was just glad to be out of classes for a while. I got kind of lonely being completely separated from the wizarding world, so I spent a week with Mayda." Lily paused for a moment then said, "I should probably start looking for her. After all it's almost exactly the time she always arrives." She saw Remus glance at the huge clock over the arched entrance to the platform: it read five minutes to eleven.

"I'm on my way to go meet James, Sirius, and Peter. I'll see you in the prefects' compartment?"

"Alright. See you." Lily walked away, a little unsettled. It was the first time that she had thought about a certain friend of Remus's since she had left with everyone else for summer. She still felt slightly awkward when she recalled the way she had screamed at James Potter the previous June. While she knew she was right for preventing him from torturing Snape, she wished the whole event had never occurred. Then she wouldn't have to deal with the memory of his asking her out. Lily had never been as furious with anyone in all her life as she had been at that moment, and the only way she had been able to respond was with anger. Did he actually think that asking her out had been appropriate AT ALL? She scowled at the thought of it.

"Lily! What's the matter?" Mayda had finally arrived. Before Lily could respond properly, Mayda was asking, "Do you think you could help me with the trunk? I was thinking I might actually get it on the train _before_ it started moving this year." Lily laughed and shook her head then raised her end of the suitcase." As soon as that was done she jumped up onto the train with her friend; it was just in time as the conductor closed the door behind her a second later.

Lily waited until Mayda had finished waving to her family as the train exited the station before telling her, "I've got to go up front. Will you find us a compartment for later?"

Mayda nodded. "We'll catch up then, right?" Lily waved in acknowledgement as she stepped through the door into the next compartment's corridor.

It took awhile for Lily to actually reach the prefects' compartment. Along the way there were trunks to jump over, third-years to tell off, and one or two Exploding Snap games that she had to look in on momentarily (she couldn't resist the pull of cards that could catch themselves on fire—she was well known in Gryffindor for this trait).

She stopped short upon reaching the Prefects' carriage. James Potter was standing there, looking out of the window. He slid the door open with a flourish. "Welcome back," he said, grinning widely. She stared at him.

"You're not a very quick learner, are you?" Lily asked as she pushed past him into the carriage. The other prefects were talking loudly and laughing as they exchanged information from their respective summers. James shrugged and kept grinning. "What are you doing here anyway?"

"You'll see my dear friend, you'll see." He smiled mischievously.

She stared at him again. "I was kidding," she said in a dead tone. "You don't actually have a purpose here, do you?"

"Evans, you will be surprised at the great amount of importance that is placed on my presence here." Before Lily could retort, the Head Boy called out for their attention. Lily had a decent amount of respect for their new Head Boy, and therefore held her tongue.

"Okay, prefects, for those of you who don't know, I'm Eric Roundshed, from Ravenclaw, and my cohort here is Eylinda Fondley, from Gryffindor. Before we start with the regular information, I want to talk about a rather grave subject. Or rather, I'm going to have James Potter talk about this grave subject. For you new prefects, you should know that this is a little unorthodox, and therefore deserves all the more attention." He looked around at all of them seriously, and then glanced at James. "Go for it," he said.

"Many of you are probably unaware of the importance of this topic, so I'm going to try to emphasize it as much as possible," James began. Lily, who had not been facing him, turned sharply at the tone of his voice. Potter was completely serious for the first time since she had known him. "The wizard known as Voldemort has slowly been rising to power in the recent years. Although most of you have heard rumors of the things he has done in his quest for power, these things only touch the surface." James looked around at each of the people there. "Voldemort's powers are beyond those that any of us can imagine, and the ways in which he is using them are even worse yet." Lily felt a prickle on her neck—both at the thought of Voldemort and at the solemn tone in which James was speaking…Why was James speaking anyway.

"The reason that I'm talking to you about this, rather than Dumbledore or the Heads of Houses is that I worked with my father over the summer. My father works as an Auror with the Ministry, and I guess you could say that I shadowed him over the summer. Dumbledore believes that with the training I have received over the summer and the perspective that I bring, I am a good candidate for introducing you all to the powers of Voldemort." He paused, as if gearing up to say something he was not quite ready to say. "On that note, I will be holding weekly meetings with all of the prefects and select others who Dumbledore feels need to be informed of the situation."

People exchanged mixed glances across the carriage. Lily looked at Remus, who was standing in a corner, for some kind of confirmation but received none. Remus had not removed his gaze from James. Lily admired the support that he showed for James, but she had her own doubts. Most of the school loved James Potter, but as the smooth prankster…not as a teacher.

"Don't get me wrong. I don't intend for this to be a class. You aren't going to be receiving homework or anything like that. The main purpose is to impress upon all of you the dangers that are facing us all, both in the magical world and outside it." James stopped talking, and to Lily he seemed like he was trying to find more to say. Apparently he failed to think of anything because his next remark was, "I guess you'll just have to wait for the first meeting to see what I mean." He looked to Eric, who immediately took over.

"Keep in mind that these meetings will be mandatory," said Eric. "Now, for the slightly more mundane duties that you'll have this year…" Eric continued the speech that had been given to them last year, but Lily tuned out. There _was_ something important going on here, and Voldemort was a big part of it. But despite Potter's qualifications, she still had some doubts about why Dumbledore had chosen James over one of the professors. She had a feeling there was much more to these meetings than James seemed to be letting on.

**Author's (Post-Fic) Note:** What I have in mind for these meetings is nothing like the Dumbledore's Army of Order of the Phoenix. Lily's right in thinking there are ulterior motives for the meetings...

Again, feel free to leave any criticism; I love it all good and bad.


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